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Show WHERE RELIGIOUS WORSHIP IS INTENSE. A short description of Czestochowa, which has been frequently mentioned in the war dispatches from Russia, is given io the Geographic Society's last bulletin, disclosing the intensely religious side of Russian character "t'zestochowa is gray in age and graj in stirring history. It is a city on the southwestern Polish plateau, some 800 feet above sea level, of 72, 600 inhabitant, capital of a county o the same name in the Russian-Pol ish government of Piotrkow, and it io situated about 12 miles from the Ger man frontier at Lower Silesia 1 CSestochowa lies on the left bank of the Warta, northwest of Cracow, and ir an important station on the Warsaw-Cracow railway. It is 143 miles Southwest of Warsaw. "Commercially, the city is of no importance. Its business is mostly with the pilgrims, of whom more than 4OM.OO0 come to its shrine every year Tl,.., . . mere die a uozen or more racones ! I :n the place, manufacturing cotton j and woolen stuffs, paper, leather and j beer. More important is a publishing publish-ing house Which does a brisk busi-neas busi-neas with the isitors in religious' i writings and sacred pictures. The j I sale of amulets, warding charms against each particular evil and j -igainst all evil in general, is a significant signifi-cant part of the city's trade 'The Black Madonna, sacred mystery mys-tery picture, the source of 'Black Madonna worship' among the Poles ; and Russians, is, in itEelf and in its j history, one of the most absorbing of paintings. It hangs in a chapel over the altar, veiled, except at the chief service twice each day. when it is shown. It Is a picture of the j Virgin and Child on cypress wood, I lack brown with age, crowned with purest geld and lavishly adorned with I a fortune of costly jewels. According to tradition, it was painted by St. Luke; came into the possession of St Helena; passed an adventuresome, beneflcient time until brought by Prince Leo to Gahcia, and was finally I placed in the Pauline Monastery at ! f'zestochowa to protect it from the Tartars in 1382. "The Pauline Monastery home 0f the wonderful painting, has been tho center of Czestochowa's history. It stands, surrounded by a pentagonal wall, on the rugged Jasna Gora promontory, prom-ontory, which dominates the city. All through the middle ages, the "fortification? "fortifi-cation? of the monastery were added to and every time hosile armies came that way. It was besieged. At one time It was so wealthy, that it is said to have owned or held in pledge one-fifteenth one-fifteenth of all estates in Poland." |
